Video: The White House
President Donald Trump on Saturday publicly pressured Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) to allow a Senate vote on making daylight saving time permanent, telling reporters at the White House that Cotton is single-handedly blocking the bill.
“Tom Cotton is holding it. He shouldn’t be holding it. It’s an issue that people want,” Trump said during a press gaggle on the South Lawn before departing for a campaign rally in Ohio.
Trump said the House had already passed the Sunshine Protection Act with more than 80 percent support and urged the Senate to follow. “So it’s an easy win,” he said. “And I’m not even talking about for the Republican Senate — for the Senate. Because it’s a very bipartisan issue.”
“And Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a state that I won by 35 or 40 points — he’s got to do it, because it would be a very nice win for the United States Senate,” Trump added.
The on-camera remarks capped a day of extraordinary public pressure on the Arkansas senator. Earlier Saturday, Trump posted on Truth Social what he said was Cotton’s personal cellphone number, urging Arkansans to call the senator about the bill. It is unconfirmed whether the number actually belongs to Cotton, and the White House has not responded to requests for comment. (Zark News is not reproducing the number.)
Cotton, writing on X without referencing Trump or the post, defended his position — noting that Congress had tried permanent daylight time before and repealed it after Americans experienced “absurdly late sunrises in the winter.”
Trump also used the gaggle to complain about the twice-yearly clock change itself — “It’s ridiculous,” he said — and claimed the extra evening daylight would even reduce crime.
The president spoke before boarding Marine One for Vandalia, Ohio, where he headlined a rally for Sen. Jon Husted and other Republicans one month before the midterm elections. At the same gaggle, Trump said Iran has been “decimated” and that he would soon decide whether to end the war “the hard way,” claimed prices are coming down, and called his presidency “the most consequential.”
Footage: The White House. This 29-second clip is drawn from the official White House video “President Trump Gaggles with Press Upon Departure from the White House, Oct. 3, 2026” — a work of the U.S. federal government in the public domain. Captions are burned in verbatim.